where to place pipe thermometer

[perry]

where abouts is the best place to stick the pipe thermometer. im running a stright chimnet threw the roof. standar 8' ceiling.
close to the stove ?. eye level ? closer to cielling?.

 

[Todd]

About 18-24" above the stove's flue collar. I like to monitor both stack and stove top temps.

 

[tradergordo]

where abouts is the best place to stick the pipe thermometer. im running a stright chimnet threw the roof. standar 8' ceiling.
close to the stove ?. eye level ? closer to cielling?.

The pipe thermometry manufacturers suggest 18" above stove, I never really understood how they picked that number though, maybe they just wanted to set some kind of standard so that people could compare temps in an apples to apples way? Its obviously going to read hotter if you put it lower, and cooler if you put it higher. I'm not sure its all that important other than you don't want it so low that the temps could peg your thermometer to the max. You will learn to operate your stove based on the temps provided by your thermometer regardless of the height, you just might not have the same temps as someone else with the same stove. So for example when your internal probe thermometer reads 700 it may be a good temp to damper down vs. someone else's that reads 900, or someone with an external thermometer that only reads 500. Even though all three stoves show a different measurment, they could all be at the same exact temp.

 

[savageactor7]

I wondered about that too when we got our quarda-fire 4300 step top last month. On our old Shenandoah stove we kept it on the stack. but that was single wall pipe. Now with double wall pipe I wasn't sure cause the pipe is cooler on the outside.

After much deliberation I decided stove temp had priority so now we keep it in the middle of the lower step. I'm happy with this arrangement and consult it all the time.

On my old stove the only time I used the Temp gauge was when I was burning hot twice a day to keep the creosote out of my chimney.

I'm no expert but have been burning wood safely since '77..but I did consult other woodburners in the area for their advice cause I didn't know squat.

 

[EddyKilowatt]

I bought a pipe thermometer from a stove supply place, made by one of the big stove-accessory names, and it was a bit of a hoax. It was basically a stove-top thermometer, with the bimetal sensing element directly behind the dial face... and a 6" steel spike behind that for mounting into the pipe. The bimetal coil stays outside the pipe. So basically this thing is a surface-temperature thermometer, calibrated to read the pipe temperature when installed in an unobstructed section of vertical pipe. I think that is the reason why they say 18" above the stove, so the thing is measuring more pipe temperature and less stove temperature.

I wanted to know the actual temperature inside my pipe so I tossed the pipe thermometer and went with an actual probe-type dial thermometer (basically an industrial-strength meat thermometer, if you like your meat cooked to 750F ;-) ), which not only is more accurate, but also responds quite a bit faster to changes within the stove. It also can go anywhere on the pipe, and doesn't depend on being 18" from the stove to achieve an accurate estimate of pipe temperature.

But I expect the other kind could do an adequate job, once you learned to work with its readings.

Eddy